Maria Reimer has been project director for the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland since 2012. In 2013, she created Jugend hackt as a pilot project. For the first event, the expected 20 participants turned into 60 youth attendees who wanted to use their technical capabilities to improve the world. Today, the non-profit funding programme for young people passionate about computers is active in many regions and federal states. The political scientist studied the innovation capacities of federal education systems at the Berlin Social Science Centre (Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung, WZB), and developed a strategy for digital openness within organisations for Transparency International Deutschland. Reimer is a research associate for a member of the Bundestag, and volunteers for FragDenStaat.de.